The first overseas deployment of the MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter on a littoral combat ship (LCS) is giving the Navy opportunities to
conduct simultaneous operations with it and the MH-
60R Seahawk helicopter, and evaluate the operational
advantages and procedures of the two helicopters operating from the ship.

When the LCS USS Fort Worth forward-deployed to
Singapore in November for a planned 16-month tour,
it carried an MH-60R and an MQ-8B, both operated by
Detachment One of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 35 (HSM- 35). The detachment swapped out with
Detachment Two in February simultaneously with the
change in the crew of the ship. Detachment Two
returned home in May during a second swap-out.

LCDR Edward Hill, officer in charge of Detachment
Two, led the four pilots, three naval air crewmen and
17 maintenance personnel. With a previous tour as an
SH-60B Seahawk pilot, this was his first deployment in
charge of a detachment.

The detachment’s MH-60R and MQ-8B are modules ofthe LCS surface warfare mission package. The MH-60Ris equipped with the AQS- 22 dipping sonar, sonobuoys,APS-153 radar and ALQ-210 electronic surveillancemeasures system. Although it can carry three Mk54 anti-submarine torpedoes, the surface warfare mission pack-age does not include them, insteadarming the MH-60R with eightAGM-114 Hellfire missiles, Hillsaid. The MH-60R also can carrytwo door-mounted machine guns,either .50-caliber or 7.62mm. TheMQ-8B can carry the Brite Starelectro-optical sensor turret.

“We provide an increasedrange,” Hill said. “The big thing inSeventh Fleet is maritime domainawareness. Instead of being limitedby the horizon, we now, [with] ahelicopter, whether that be the“In terms of actual operations, we were out therelearning of the art of the possible, figuring out whenwas the right mix of flying MH-60R compared to MQ-8B compared to flying them both,” he said. “As westart to slowly work through that process and deter-mine what the correct mix is going forward, I thinkwe’ll find the added capabilities that LCS brings.”“Our standard operating procedures allow us to workmanned and unmanned simultaneously from a single-spot ship,” Hill said, referring to the flight deck on thefantail of the LCS. “That’s something that LCS nowbrings to the fight that we would not necessarily do on afrigate or a destroyer because those are single-spot shipsand we, in the HSM community, don’t operate twomanned aircraft from the single-spot ship. We’re addinga capability here with LCS and Fire Scout.”Hill found that the Fire Scout gave the detachmentextra flexibility in managing operations more efficiently.

“My detachment would have two crews for the MH-
60R and three crews for the MQ-8B,” he said. “In terms
of how I, as an air boss, scheduled my crews for mis-